Hell Week

Hey guys, I promise a post this weekend. That's right, I actually guarantee it. I'm itching to post again, but I physically cannot right now. I'm so swamped. It's actually a little scary (I went to bed last night at 8AM), but I think I can get through it with enough willpower This week (past and future) involves an OS homework, a gigantic OS project, a gigantic Vision homework, difficult Network Security homework, an OS exam, a Marketing test, and a Finance test (back-to-back on the last two). Yeah, it's beyond ridiculous. After this though, my next (and last) exam is next Thursday, plus a take home final for Vision. So I'll definitely have time to post this weekend. I didn't get a chance to post last week because it was my last week with someone very special in my life. They're not dead or anything. In fact, she's still around and it's nice that I can still hang out with her. I have every faith that we'll end up together if it's meant to be. If not, I've been happier beyond all measures with her and I'm so glad that she's still a part of my life.

There are a couple of quick things I would like to briefly mention. Gmail has made some great improvements to the Gmail including Group Chat, AIM support, and better usability of labels. I love how the Gmail team is so receptive to user feedback; good job, guys! The other thing is that my Network Security professor, being the badass he is, made Slashdot last week. He broke anonymity with the Netflix contest data. Netflix has a running contest with a prize of $1 million for an algorithm that recommends movies more accurately than their current algorithm by at least 10%. They attached the records of 500,000 of their users to the contest with their identities stripped from it, but my professor and a grad student here at UT found an algorithm to link identities extremely accurately to IMDb. How crazy is that?

Oh, and please sign this petition. YouTube marks videos of stutterers as comedy. To me, this is utterly unacceptable. Speech impediments are not a laughing matter to those of us with them, and I also fear that kids who sneak onto YouTube and see videos like that being called 'comedy' will feel motivated to make fun of stutterers or clutterers at their school.

Before I sign off here I'll leave you with a picture of my loot from Black Friday: